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All Over The Place

December 27th, 2017 at 03:32 pm

This post may be a bit all over the place...several money thoughts on my mind this morning that I simply want to share.

We bought a new camera just before Christmas. We have been without one for about two years. I personally could probably have passed, but my husband seemed very interested. He has made a great point of using it over the last several days, getting pictures and video of our family. We took a family picture to send out on Facebook. The cost of the camera was $299, plus tax. He also bought an HD SD card. I was mad about that part initially, but I do see it has some better features than some older cards we have, so I will deal. I applied my husband's birthday money that he hadn't yet spent, and the remaining Christmas budget to cover most of it. After that I just took some cash from other budget areas so we can make it work.

We shopped for some grocery and personal care needs at Target yesterday. I used a $2 coupon along with the gift cards I bought for 10% off after Thanksgiving. So no new money out of pocket for things we needed. I was thinking of going to the store again, but I think I'm going to see if we can make it through Friday or Saturday night and just get our regular groceries for the first week in January.

Our final 2017 education and retirement contributions have been made. We added $2K to our youngest's Coverdell account and maxed out our Roth IRA's. These are all on automatic investment from our checking account, so it's easy to make it happen. I will need to double our payment in 2018 for our daughter's final contributions. She turns 18 in July, after which we we can no longer contribute. I think I may actually just take $1000 from savings and put it in for January. and then continue our regular $166.66 for the first six months of the year as we usually do. I can pay ourselves back the $1000 to savings for the remainder of the year.

I'm working on financial goals for 2018, but I need more time to focus. It's a little busy around here this week, with both girls off school and my husband home from work!

Our Discover statement closed the other day. We earned $15.53 in rewards. I'm going to redeem those and put them towards the Big Goal.

I transferred $8K we had in a second checking account to FNBO Direct yesterday. They have 1.4% interest rate, which is far better than our checking account.

We are about to buy my daughter a new cell phone. Her's is 3.5 years old, barely holds a charge and the camera on it no longer works. She is going to get the same phone I have, it will cost us $13 a month for the next 24 months. Since I charge our Verizon bill to US Bank for 5% back we will also get that same discount on the cost of the phone as well, which adds up to $15 in the end. But we will take it!

And finally, we are very close to purchasing a new laptop computer for our youngest daughter to take to school in the fall. We are going to buy it from the university she is going to attend. They offer a four year warranty, a discount and no sales tax. It's a Dell that will work for her engineering study needs. Cost will be $1299. I currently have $1,047 in the budget for it. We should have the rest of the money on Friday when my husband is paid.

Thanks for sticking with me on all my thoughts! Smile

3 Responses to “All Over The Place”

  1. snafu Says:
    1514391961

    CCF, I'm having a ghastly time working out budget figures and savings goals. I really liked our 2017 CC with the highest payout rates as they recap spending categories, cashback percent and sum charged in the specific category on the back of the page. Year end December bill included annual total in each category.

    In mid December we switched primary use card as the special promotional rate ended. The bank holding our oldest, dormant CC offered 5% cash back on most categories we use for 3 months and we merely had to order new cards to access those benefits..

    I am considering moving EF and general saving to an online bank that offers high savings rate but they require opening yet another CC, paying at least two automatic, repetitive, monthly bills and an automatic deposit. I can't figure out how much cash to switch to make it worthwhile. It's been my habit sweep any sums remaining in chequing to savings the last business day of the month and can move a non retirement, poorly performing 'Income MF' to saving without cost or penalty.

    Any views or opinions on chasing banking benefits will be most appreciated.

  2. rob62521 Says:
    1514575261

    Sounds like a great deal on that laptop!

    I think you did well on the camera. It sounds like it should last for awhile and hubby is getting some use out of it.

  3. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1514605690

    My DH wanted bullets and casings for Christmas.... I reluctantly bought them for him. He's already put them in his gun, so I guess he will get some use out of them. Though hopefully your new camera will have much more use!

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